


The Eye of the Storm

by muse_in_absentia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 04:12:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5033254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muse_in_absentia/pseuds/muse_in_absentia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes getting caught in the rain can have interesting consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Eye of the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a prompt stolen from the prompt list at the wonderful RSGames fest over [here](http://rs-games.livejournal.com/) because I was looking for motivation.
> 
> Prompt: _"And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow."  
>  ~ G. K. Chesterton _
> 
> Also, this is completely unbeta'd, so please feel free to yell at me for any mistakes I may have made. :)

Remus was staring down at the piece of parchment in his hands with something that felt an awful lot like dread creeping up inside his chest. “Why did I agree to this, again?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound quite as petulant as he felt. And also that he didn’t jump visibly when Sirius clapped a hand on his shoulder, wrinkling his robes and leaving a spot of heat that Remus wanted to melt into.

“Because you love us,” Sirius grinned, tucking a stray piece of hair behind his ear and turning to rummage through the trunk at the foot of his bed. At the foot of _Remus’_ bed.

“Oi!” he called, shoving at Sirius, who completely ignored him and continued digging through Remus’ things.

And that was the crux of the problem. Because Sirius was very right, and also very wrong. He certainly did love his friends an inordinate amount. He wasn’t ashamed of that. He was starting to be alarmed, however, by his inability to remember how to use the word “no”. An inability that had slowly crept up on him over the last six and a half years and centered very firmly around a mischievous smile and sharp grey eyes.

Which was how he found himself leaning against his bed post, the cold from the stone floor seeping up into his ever-stiff joints, staring at a list that was in fact written in his own hand over the course of the last week. On it were things such as:

1) Make certain there is enough Bubbling Boils Brew  
2) Figure out how to transfigure door handles into porcupines  
3) Double check supply of treacle fudge

And that was just for starters.

“Wormtail, you’re sure you can manage the weather simulation charm while I take care of the suits of armor?” James was asking, pacing in front of the mostly banked fireplace when Remus pried his thoughts back to the surface.

Peter just grinned and flicked his wand. There was a sudden clap of thunder echoing around their dormitory.

“Good man, Pete.” Sirius stood up, shreds of parchment stuck in his hair and one of Remus’ jumpers dangling from his fingers.

“Sirius?”

“Yes, Moony?”

Remus forgot to answer for a brief second when that Cheshire cat grin caught him and wouldn’t let go. “What are you doing with my jumper?” At least he still sounded calm. Months of his brain going to mush every time Sirius so much as smiled at him, and he still hadn’t grown immune. Sometimes he feared he never would, that he would be forever reduced to a stuttering mess every time Sirius walked past him.

“Haven’t you been paying attention? We’re in charge of making sure there are Glowering Gladiolas at all the entranceways.” The jumper hit him in the face, and Remus was sure he could almost smell Sirius on it. “Wouldn’t want you getting cold and losing control of your wand again.”

“That was _one time,_ ” Remus growled, muffled as he pulled the jumper on, pretending that the idea of Sirius worrying about him wasn’t enough to keep him warm through anything.

“My hair was purple for a week,” Peter grumbled, but he was grinning.

“That wasn’t Moony’s fault. That was from the tinting tincture James put in your shampoo. It was temperature controlled, so it didn’t activate until you were someplace cold. Didn’t want you cottoning on as to where it had come from, clever bastard,” Sirius laughed as he tossed his extra scarf towards Remus, who caught it just before it went sailing past his shoulder. He supposed it was only fair, since Sirius was the one who had accidentally unraveled Remus’ scarf while trying to transfigure it into a Elfwasp Vine for some scheme of James’ that Remus had missed while recovering from the last full moon.

James whacked Sirius on the arm hissing something about traitorous friends, plucked the map out of Sirius’ back pocket, a familiarity that Remus envied them, and grabbed his cloak.

“Sirius, are you-“

“Don’t, James,” Sirius cut him off, making a face that Remus couldn’t interpret, but that made James frown.

Before James could continue, however, Peter grabbed him by the elbow, dragging him towards the door. “Okay, play nice you two, we have a lot of work to get through tonight if we want to be back here in time to act shocked and avoid detention tomorrow.”

Sirius snorted, grabbing both his cloak and Remus’ before they all slipped out of their dorm, through the common room and into the hallway.

“Off to create more mischief?” the fat lady asked sleepily as she swung closed behind them.

“Us? Never,” Sirius winked, grinning as they all disappeared down the stairs and around the corner.

Once they were all far enough down the stairs that the fat lady couldn’t hear them anymore they stopped. James made a face down at the contents of his hands, but finally he handed the map to Peter with a sigh. “I need to cloak if I’m going to make it to all the suits of armor, so I suppose that means you get the map, Pete.”

With a sharp grin Peter scampered off in the direction of the Great Hall, clutching the map tightly.

“All right, Sirius, do I need-“

“No, you really don’t, James. You’ve stated your opinions, and we don’t have time to argue right now, unless you feel like getting caught without a prank to even justify our detention.”

The way James’ eyebrows pinched together and his mouth flattened out said that he was considering making the time to argue with Sirius anyway, which was slightly worrying to Remus, who had never seen them so much as disagree for more than a matter of minutes before breaking down and turning their joint frustrations into pranking someone, anyone, just to get it out of their systems. 

Fighting the urge to disappear back up to the dorm and let them hash it out, prank or no prank, he forced something resembling a smile onto his face and stepped between them.

“Should I leave the two of you alone, then, until you get over this lovers spat?”

It had the desired effect. They both turned to stare at him, and stopped glaring at each other. James was choking, his face going a blotchy red color, but it was Sirius who went pale, grey eyes flashing impossibly wide. Suddenly Remus didn’t want to know just how close to the mark he had hit.

He held his hands up in supplication. “Come on, prank time. You two can finish your argument when we get back. I’ll keep Pete in the common room so you can take care of-“ he gestured between them sharply, “whatever this is.”

They stood there for another minute, the tension so thick Remus could smell it, mingled with James’ cheap cologne and Sirius’ expensive shampoo. Then, with another glare at Sirius, James disappeared beneath his cloak, and his footsteps disappeared down the corridor. 

“Wow, Moony, never thought you’d be the one urging us to go out and pull off a prank.”

They started walking slowly down past the portrait of the Sleeping Selkies and ducked behind the tapestry of Wailing Wilma into a short passageway that let out near the lake. Remus didn’t answer until they were outside and out of hearing of any potentially passing professors. 

“You do realize it was mostly a ploy to get you two to stop fighting, right? I mean, it’s like watching your parents fight or something.” Remus shrugged, grateful that Sirius had forced his thickets jumper onto him as he shivered in the cold night air.

“With fewer curses, I hope,” Sirius muttered and Remus felt the air leave his lungs like a popped balloon, sharp and irretrievable. 

“Oh, Padfoot, I didn’t-“

Sirius waved him off with an impatient, brittle gesture that shot little white hot sparks out of the end of his wand.

The sound of heavy thunder interrupted them before Remus could try again to apologize.

“Wow, I didn’t think Pete was that good,” Sirius snorted, glancing in the direction of the Great Hall.

“I don’t think that was Pete,” Remus muttered as the first raindrop splashed down on his cheek. The sky was suddenly day bright, jagged tears of illumination crackling in the fissures between clouds. A second raindrop landed on Remus’ shoulder, then another on his shoe, and then he suddenly couldn’t count them anymore.

“Oh, bugger this!” Sirius exclaimed, grabbing Remus by the wrist and dragging him back the way they came, only to realize they had forgotten to prop the passageway open. “Fuck!” he shouted, slamming the side of his fist into the castle wall.

“Sirius, Sirius, it’s okay.” Remus snatched Sirius’ hand and started looking it over to make sure that his fit of temper didn’t warrant a trip to the hospital wing. He tried to ignore the way Sirius was still warm despite the freezing rain and lack of gloves or a warming charm, or the way Sirius seemed to still completely at his touch. That wasn’t going to help their situation any.

Once he had satisfied himself that nothing was broken he forced himself to let go and cast a quick warming charm over both of them. “We’ll just go around to the other side of the castle and let ourselves in by the statue of Dancing Delilah. That door always sticks a little, so it’s never locked.”

There was another crack of lightning, followed by two more in quick succession.

“We’ll never make it across the Quidditch pitch if this doesn’t let up,” Sirius said, hunching his shoulders, hair dripping into his eyes. “We’ll be visible every time the lightning flashes.”

Remus was very tempted to bang his head against the wall the way Sirius had his fist. Instead he let out a little huff of air that was as much resignation as it was exasperation. “I suppose there’s no help for it. We’ll have to hide out in the shack. Come on.”

Sirius balked at first and Remus tried very hard not to let himself think that maybe it was because Sirius knew how much he hated being in the shack, because thinking that way led to hope and heartache. Eventually he managed to drag Sirius to the Whomping Willow where Sirius levitated a medium sized rock into freezing the wildly whipping branches.

Once they had ducked into the long tunnel that led off school grounds and into the shack Sirius paused and shook his hair like he had forgotten which form he was currently in.

With a small yelp Remus tried to jump back out of the way, but his back hit a dirt wall, a small root digging into his hip, and he couldn’t avoid getting caught in the spraying drops. He tried to frown, but Sirius just laughed at him, his grey eyes crinkling a little at the corners.

“Oh don’t pretend you don’t like the smell of wet dog on everything, Moony. I’ve seen the way you always roll over onto whatever pillow Padfoot has been sharing with you.”

Remus felt his cheeks get warm despite the chill air and was inordinately grateful for the dim lighting. To cover his embarrassment he cast a quick drying charm on himself and deliberately ignored Sirius.

“Oi, do I get one of those?”

“Depends,” Remus grinned, marching determinedly past Sirius and towards the shack. “Have you earned one?”

“Probably not, but you love me enough to do it anyway?” Sirius whined, waiting until Remus turned around and flashing a particularly potent pout on him. Remus sighed and flicked his wand in Sirius’ direction.

“You’re a terror, you know that, right?” Remus said, hoping that the little catch in his voice when Sirius said the word love wasn’t noticeable to anyone but himself.

Tossing an arm around Remus’ shoulders, which was not helping his breathing any, Sirius barked out a laugh. “Aww, Moony, you say the sweetest things.”

The rest of the relatively short walk to the shack was spent with their hips bumping and Remus sure he was going to spontaneously combust.

Once inside they pulled the dusty cushions off the broken down sofa, making a nest on the floor. “James is not going to be happy that we couldn’t manage our part,” Remus muttered for something to say, plucking at the edges of his jumper. He folded himself onto one of the cushions, legs curled in, knees all sharp angles and sharper aches.

Sirius simply collapsed on the cushion next to him, like he had just let go of his resistance to gravity and let it pull him down with a small thud that he didn’t seem to notice. “I’m not sure he could be any less happy with me right now,” he muttered, not looking at Remus.

There was a long pause, where all the things that weren’t being said seemed to crowd together in their own silent symphony of tension until finally Remus sighed and settled down on his back so he didn’t have to see Sirius’ face. “Do you want to tell me what that’s about?”

He didn’t turn when Sirius let out a snort of laughter that was a lot less humor and a lot more desperation. He didn’t want to see the look that went with it.

“James is under the, probably entirely correct, assumption that I’m going to cock everything up.”

“I don’t think even James can blame us for this storm. There is no way we can get flowers to grow with that wind, even with your charm work,” Remus snorted, closing his eyes and pretending he couldn’t smell the coppery tang of stale blood from the rooms above them.

Sirius didn’t answer for a moment, and Remus finally pried his eyes open and tipped his head, his ear folding awkwardly against the cushions he was laying on, taking in Sirius’ bitten lip and the way he was scrubbing his hand through his still damp hair. “Sirius?”

“Well, he’s less concerned about it in the fucking up a prank way and more in the sending Snape to the Willow sort of way. In the irrevocably tearing us all apart way.” Now it was Sirius’ turn to refuse eye contact, staring at the mildew stains on the wall. 

That was enough to give Remus pause. After the months of distance, of not speak to anyone and charming his curtains so they couldn’t be opened from the outside at night he thought that Sirius had learned better than to do anything that foolish again. And as much as James was every bit the same insufferable prat that Sirius was, Remus trusted James’ opinion on the gravity of the situation.

“Oh Sirius, what could you possibly be thinking?” Remus asked quietly, ignoring the way his chest was constricting.

Sirius rubbed at his eyes in a way that looked like it was causing more pain than it was alleviating, knuckles digging in with harsh sweeps. “I wasn’t thinking, Moony. When have you ever known me to think things through?”

Laying down probably wasn’t the best way to have this conversation, Remus decided. It left him feeling far too vulnerable, a little too much like the wolf exposing his belly. Sitting up and curling his arms around his propped up knees Remus sighed, tucking his cheek against leg. “I was hoping that maybe after last time you would at least consider thinking before acting.” 

“But I haven’t acted yet,” Sirius muttered, finally looking at Remus, his grey eyes raw and red and slightly lost. 

Remus wanted to ask why he would if he knew it would end badly, but he didn’t. The look on Sirius’ face stilled his tongue faster than any harsh words ever could have.

Something must have shown on his face anyway, because Sirius sighed. “It isn’t really the sort of thing that can be helped, Moony, or I would, I swear, but falling in love isn’t really a choice, even if it is with the wrong person.”

Ignoring the way his chest clenched painfully at Sirius confessing to falling in love, Remus forced a small smile and snorted. “Because James is the voice of reason when it comes to falling in love.”

When that failed to produce even a weak smile Remus took a deep breath and plunged forward. “It isn’t Lily, is it?”

“Ah, well, see Moony, that would…” Sirius trailed off, picking at a loose thread at the edges of his cloak.

“Sirius,” Remus said quietly, trying to fight down the small bubble of unease that was burbling beneath his breastbone. “I literally turn into a slathering, bloodthirsty beast once a month and you lot are insane enough to not care. Do you really think there is anything you could tell me that I couldn’t accept? Unless it’s Snape,” that finally got a reaction in the form of a small shudder from Sirius, “there is no one you could name that could possibly make me think less of you.”

There was no answer for long enough that Remus was sure that Sirius wasn’t going to give him one, but eventually Sirius whispered, “It’s not Lily. She doesn’t-“ he let out a humorless laugh and ran his fingers through his increasingly tousled hair. Remus’ fingers itched to join them. “She doesn’t have the right bits.” He finished, finally, sounded strangled.

“Well,” Remus started, trying to remember how to breathe around the tiny flicker of hope that was worming its way into his chest, filling his lungs and making his head spin. “I can honestly say that wasn’t what I was expecting.”

Sirius flinched and Remus gave in to the urge to reach out and rest his hand lightly on Sirius’ arm. The way that Sirius sagged at the touch, wide eyed and shaking, said that maybe it was the right thing to do.

Feeling bolder than he could remember ever feeling before Remus continued, trying to sound as confident as he could manage. “I only have one question for you, Padfoot.”

Sirius nodded, but didn’t say anything, still staring at where Remus’ hand was resting against his arm, pale scars against paler skin.

“Fabian Prewett’s arse or Kingsley Shacklebolt’s shoulders. I’ve been debating between the two since Christmas hols last year, but I have yet to reach a satisfactory conclusion.”

Grey eyes snapped to his face, wondering and suddenly bright. “Remus?” Sirius barely breathed his name, but it made something spark in the pit of Remus’ stomach and he smiled tentatively.

“Of course, I’ve always been partial to your eyes, but then I might be a touch biased, and certainly couldn’t ask for your opinion on that,” he whispered, letting his thumb run lightly over Sirius’ pulse where it was jumping erratically beneath the thin skin of his wrist.

“You should always be partial to me,” Sirius answered, a bit of his old cockiness tripping through his words, as if it was unsure it was allowed to be there yet, but trying out an appearance anyway. When Remus didn’t pull his hand away a slow, burning smile edged its way onto Sirius’ face. “Although, I think I’d rather you be partial to my lips.”

Remus laughed, sharp and slightly disbelieving. “Well, I might be, but I haven’t had the chance to try those yet.”

“Do you want to?” Only years of cataloguing every little detail of Sirius let Remus catch the uncertainty hiding behind the question.

“I may have thought about it a few times,” Remus admitted with an overly casual shrug. “Or a few years.”

Sirius barely waited for him to finish before surging forward, brash as ever now that he had permission, and catching Remus in an awkward kiss, his nose pressing into Remus’ cheek until Remus tilted his head just slightly and their mouths slotted together like this wasn’t the first time, like this was the only time. He wasn’t sure which one of them gasped, but he was chasing the sound back into Sirius’ mouth, tasting the way it reverberated there.

When they finally pulled apart Sirius kept his arms around Remus, tucking himself in under Remus’ chin. Remus let himself card his fingers through Sirius’ hair, tugging faintly at the damp strands where they had tangled.

“Prongs is probably going to kill us for this,” Sirius muttered against Remus’ throat.

Remus shivered as Sirius’ breath ghosted across his pulse. “He can try. But remember, I know all the best places in the forest to hide a deer carcass.”

When Sirius laughed, shaking them both with it, Remus was fairly certain he had never been more grateful for the rain.


End file.
